Morobe spends K10m on road

THE Morobe government has spent K10 million for road developments in 2013 and 2014, Governor Kelly Naru says. Naru said this during a visit to the Wawin access road with provincial works chairman Joel Johnson, deputy administrator Lucas Kissu and chief of staff Mala Ahi. Naru said his government had been allocating K5million annually for roads in the province. But last year the funding was cut by the Government which affected their road development programmes. “Our allocation for roads is about K5m a year from the Provincial Services Improvement Programme but last year it did not work well,” he said. “That is why we have been slow a bit. But for the previous two years we have expanded K10m. For this year, unfortunately, we did not put any money for the road infrastructures because our PSIP has been slashed.” Naru said the Government owed Morobe K38m in PSIP funds from last year. Between 15 and 30 per cent of Morobe’s internal revenue is spread out on service delivery and infrastructure development. Some of the road projects undertaken included the Boana Ring Road, Finschhafen-Lae Road, West Taraka Road, Sealing of part of Fourth Street, Wau-Biaru-Kasangare Road, Leron-Wantoat Road, sealing of road from Erap Junction to Boana, and the Ongga-Waffa Road. “Morobe is a big province and we can’t seal all the roads in a short time,” he said.